BEAUTIFUL LOVE (BERLIN, 1965)

Ernesto Hernández Busto

Afternoons when you went looking for lives to reap,
those of the happy few who saw him alive;
Berlin girls with aberrant thighs in the front row,
the cameraman on overtime,
the shy neighbors who met Emily
on Ilkka Kuusisto’s sofa, in Lauttasaari,
or the couple that makes jokes at the Vanguard,
her vulgar laughter released in minute five of “Porgy”
before her ovation when dessert arrives…
A melancholy ogre whispers
the only secret without words,
and his mouth stretches to his ear,
the deformed face of that
sad giant bent over the piano
like a great question mark,
an elegant turtle deciphering the dissonant
origin of this world,
two hands in the middle of silence,
“beautiful love”, he repeats, “beautiful love”.

Ernesto Hernández Busto (Havana, Cuba, 1968). Cuban poet, essayist, editor, and translator who resides in Barcelona. Among his most recent titles are found La ruta natural (Vaso Roto, 2015) and Diario de Kioto (Cuadrivio, 2015). He is a contributor to El País.